Is the song Hallelujah really praising the lord or is it just about sex? Because I always thought it's about having sex until I read somewhere it's about praising God.

Lyrics (Jeff Buckley version):

I heard there was a secret chord that David played and it pleased the Lord But you don't really care for music, do you? Well it goes like this : The fourth, the fifth, the minor fall and the major lift The baffled king composing Hallelujah

Hallelujah Hallelujah Hallelujah Hallelujah...

Well your faith was strong but you needed proof You saw her bathing on the roof Her beauty and the moonlight overthrough ya She tied you to her kitchen chair She broke your throne and she cut your hair And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah

Baby I've been here before I've seen this room and I've walked this floor I used to live alone before I knew ya I've seen your flag on the marble arch But love is not a victory march It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah

There was a time when you let me know What's really going on below But now you never show that to me do ya But remember when I moved in you And the holy dove was moving too And every breath we drew was Hallelujah

Well, maybe there's a God above But all I've ever learned from love Was how to shoot somebody who outdrew ya It's not a cry that you hear at night It's not somebody who's seen the light It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah Hallelujah Hallelujah...

ecib: I think reading it as praising God is the incorrect lazy interpretation, and you are correct in your initial reading of it -merely having the word hallelujah doesn't have to imply praise for a deity. It's totally about human sexuality and a man's relationship to a woman, though the context is informed by religion. There are references to forbidden knowledge (carnal), woman as temptress and and sinfuly testing one's faith, but also of an ideal that sexual union at its best and most perfect is also a religiously sanctioned and holy union (as the church indeed teaches). Classic Madonna/whore dynamic. The song is ultimately bitter though, because this is perfect union isn't realized. The man has been scorned, the perfect union is but a memory, and this leads even to a skepticism about God himself. I mean, the last stanza says it all.

So yeah. The ideal holy sexual/spiritual union is attempted, and ultimately not attained, and the man is left broken and stripped of his faith.

Edit: the woman as temptress and cause of man's loss of his special relationship with god is referenced quite literally In the second verse. That is the biblical story of Samson and Delilah http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delilah#Biblical_narrative what with the binding, and the cutting of his hair to remove his power and all


posted 4380 days ago